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This paper aims to suggest a procedure for successfully transforming a firm’s innovation processes in a systematic way.

This is a conceptual paper, which draws on prior academic and practitioner papers.

Changes in a firm’s environment, such as new technological trends or customer needs, regularly call for the dynamic renewal of a firm’s innovation processes. Nonetheless, most firms proceed in a surprisingly unsystematic way if they transform their innovation processes. This approach contrasts with the systematic innovation processes that many firms have established to manage their product development from initial idea to final market launch.

To overcome this discrepancy, this paper distinguishes reconfiguration and realignment challenges in the transformation of a firm’s innovation processes. These different activities are illustrated with the example of transforming firms’ innovation processes towards open innovation. Furthermore, a five-step procedure is suggested to ease implementation. On this basis, implications for managers are discussed with respect to proficiently adapting their firms’ innovation processes over time.

The purpose of this paper is to operationalise the collaborative cross-border innovation process employed by multinational corporations in their effort to penetrate new markets.

The paper is based on the case study of a leading European telecommunications group (OPERACOM). Methodologically it relies on 32 interviews, observation and secondary data analysis, and is theoretically founded on an extensive (mostly narrative and partly meta-synthetic) literature review.

The findings show that two new activities merit inclusion in the collaborative cross-border innovation process: strategic marketing anticipation and pre-opportunity studies. In this context, three strategic marketing levers are elucidated: subsidiaries’ knowledge integration, communication/coordination mechanisms, and collaboration-governance; interrelating on the way the activities and elements comprising the breadth and depth of the process’ continuum.

These stem from and are inherent to the very nature of the research (case study), which proscribes generalisations. Additionally, the research’s long-term span subjects the results to some inevitable potential temporal distortions.

The research findings, owing to their detailed and activity-specific disposition, constitute a case prototype towards further and/or corresponding application to organisations of this and/or other industries; presenting executives with an existing and market-tested positive paradigm of the innovation aspect of the collaborative market-entry mechanism.

Carrying significant scholarly and executive value, the research substantially and specifically enhances the understanding of innovation as an integral part of the internationalisation process, describing and prescribing explicit processes and actions throughout the horizontal and vertical organisational axes.

The purpose of this study is to identify different service innovation drivers, innovation process activities and to understand industrial services innovation management and coordination, as well as to develop a framework for industrial service innovation management and coordination.

The study involved collection of information and data from the literature and the Norwegian oil and gas (O&G) industry. A survey was conducted to get an overview of existing practices and guided interviews were conducted to confirm the findings of the survey.

The study indicates that the market needs are considered the most important innovation process driver, feedback from the customers is the most important activity to encourage service innovations, whilst return on investments is the most important decision‐making factor in evaluating innovation feasibility. Employees are the most important source of innovation ideas. Furthermore, interactions between different companies, as well as involvement of customer, employees and suppliers in the innovation process are becoming increasingly important.

The study shows that service providers and receivers often collaborate in the innovation processes, and that many of the activities are performed simultaneously. This results in the collaborative parties needing to put resources on managing and coordinating the innovation process in a structured, effective and efficient way. The proposed framework for service innovation management and coordination provides practitioners with a structured approach to manage industrial service innovations.

The findings are based on the data collected from a number of companies from the O&G industry in Norway.

The paper identifies different innovation process drivers and activities and proposes a modified framework for industrial services innovation management and coordination based on the study analysis, interaction with the practitioners and using available literature on innovation management.

This paper seeks to investigate with reference to which factors the innovation processes of new and improved products differ and how these factors relate to the products' success on the market, with a specific focus on technology‐ and market‐related factors.

Data were collected on 129 products of the Dutch food and beverages (F&B) industry announced in professional journals in 1998. Questionnaires were used in 2000 to evaluate product innovativeness, product innovation process factors and short‐term market performance; whereas in 2005 long‐term market performance was measured.

The results show that there are considerable differences in the innovation processes of new versus improved products and in the role of process‐related aspects in the short‐ and long‐term market success of these products. Interestingly, taking the current emphasis on market orientation in the F&B industry into account, technology‐related aspects are especially crucial for long‐term market success.

The study distinguishes between product development processes of new versus improved products and relates innovation process factors to the success not of the company as a whole but of the specific product that is under development. This is a new approach. Moreover, the success of products is measured not only soon after market launch, but also after several years. It fills an important research gap by investigating success factors of products that have become cash cows of F&B companies.

The purpose of this research is to explore the mechanisms of knowledge management (KM) for innovation and provide an approach for enterprises to leverage KM activities into continuous innovation.

By reviewing the literature from multidisciplinary fields, the concepts of knowledge, KM and innovation are investigated. The physical, human and technological perspectives of KM are distinguished with the identification of two core activities for innovation: knowledge creation and knowledge usage. Then an essential requirement for continuous innovation – an internalization phase – is defined. The systems thinking and human‐centered perspectives are adopted for providing a comprehensive understanding about the mechanisms of KM for innovation.

A networking process of continuous innovation based on KM is proposed by incorporating the phase of internalization. Three sources of organizational knowledge assets in innovation are identified. Then, based on the two core activities of innovation, a meta‐model and a macro process of KM are proposed to model the mechanisms of KM for continuous innovation. Then, in order to operationalize the KM mechanisms, a hierarchical model with four layers is constructed by integrating three sources of knowledge assets, the meta‐model and the macro process into the process of continuous innovation.

According to the lessons learned about KM practices in previous research, the three perspectives of KM should collaborate with one another for successful implementation of KM projects for innovation; the networking process of innovation provides a new way to integrate KM process in innovation; the hierarchical model provides a suitable architecture to implement systems of KM for innovation.

The meta‐model and macro process of KM explain how the next generation of KM can help the value creation and support the continuous innovation from the systems thinking perspective. The hierarchical model illustrates the complicated knowledge dynamics in the process of continuous innovation.

Employees are considered as important contributors to service innovation, but the literature is not unanimous about what employee involvement in service innovation entails. To advance theoretical understanding of the topic, this paper develops a conceptual framework for analysing employee involvement in service innovations, reviews existing research on the topic and proposes a research agenda.

Different modes of employee involvement in service innovation are distinguished based on two dimensions: (1) the intensity of employee influence on service innovation and (2) the breadth of the innovation activity in which employees are involved. This conceptual framework is abductively developed through a literature review of empirical service innovation studies to identify and analyse whether and how these modes of employee involvement are manifested in the service innovation literature.

The findings delineate six modes of employee involvement in the reviewed service innovation studies. Employees are primarily seen as having a strong influence on situated innovation activities but a limited influence on systemic innovation activities. The findings show that more research is needed to assess the connections between different modes of employee involvement.

The findings can be used by practitioners to assess the possibilities different modes of employee involvement may bring to service innovation activities.

The proposed conceptual framework and the analysis of current research and research gaps in service innovation studies provide a clear research agenda for progressing multidimensional understanding of employee involvement in service innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of financial constraints on innovation in developing countries. It also examines how the effect of financial constraints varies by sector and with main firm characteristics such as size and age.

The study utilizes matched firm-level data from two sources; the World Bank Enterprise Survey and the Innovation Follow-Up Survey. From 11 African countries, 4,720 firms have been included in the sample. A recursive bivariate probit model is used.

The result shows that financial constraints adversely affect a firm’s decision to engage in innovative activities and the likelihood to have product innovation and process innovation. The results point out that the extent of the adverse effect of financial constraints on innovation differs across the sectors, firm size and age groups. A firm’s innovation is also explained by firm size, R&D, cooperation/alliance, the human capital of the firm, staff training, public financial support and export. At last, the probability of encountering financial constraints is explained by firms’ ex ante financing structure, amount of collateral, accounting and auditing practices and group membership.

Managers should strengthen the internal and external financing capacity to reduce financing constraints and their adverse effect on innovation.

A pending policy task for African leaders is to design and evaluate reforms that reduce the adverse effects of financial constraints on innovation.

This study contributes to the existing literature on financing of innovation by examining how and to what extent financial constraints affect innovation across various sectors, size and age groups.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical analysis of whether differing forms of innovation act as complements or substitutes in Irish firms’ production functions.

The approach adopted by this paper is empirical in nature. Data are obtained for approximately 582 firms from the Irish Community Innovation Survey 2004‐2006. In total, four forms of innovation activity are identified: new to firm product, new to market product, process and organisational innovation. Formal tests for complementarity and substitutability are applied to these types of innovation to assess whether they have a complementary effect on firms’ turnover.

The results suggest that there is a substantial degree of complementarity among different forms of innovation. Out of six possible innovation combinations, three are complementary while none exhibits signs of substitutability.

From a business perspective, the importance of organisational change to facilitate technological innovation is highlighted, while from a policy perspective the importance of the incentivisation of organisation and process innovation is also highlighted.

To date, most research has focused on the impact of various forms of innovation, in isolation, on firms’ productivity. They do not consider whether these forms of innovation may in fact be linked, and that by implementing two or more innovations simultaneously, the combined benefits may be greater than the sum of the parts.

Brand effect is an important source of innovation performance, but rarely any study in the past has paid attention to explore the way firm innovation activities transform into brand effect. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firm innovation activities transform into brand effect.

A set of hypothesis has been developed to show the relationships among firm innovation activities, brand prototype, brand preference and brand recommendation. The online survey method was used for data collection. In total, 546 valid questionnaires were retrieved. The study used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling technique to test the hypothesis.

Results indicate that brand prototype leads the process of cognitive processing from innovation activities’ perception to brand preference and recommendation. The consumer perception of process innovation, marketing innovation, product innovation and the store environment have direct impact on brand prototype that further influences product sophistication, brand preference and brand recommendation. But, the most powerful influence is on brand preference. Moreover, product sophistication–attribute-specific brand knowledge has direct impact on brand preference and indirect impact on the brand recommendation. The whole process from brand prototype to brand preference and brand recommendation mainly reflects the strength of the brand effect formation.

This study provides useful managerial insights so that firms can learn the way to maximize brand effect through the management of innovation perception and cultivation of innovation soft capability to enhance innovation performance.

This study unfolds the transformation of firm innovation activities into brand effect that provides a new theoretical explanation and a holistic framework for the source of innovation performance.

The purpose of this paper is to open up the research and development (R&D) organisation by separating product and process innovation and exploring these activities in terms of the structural variable of centralisation versus decentralisation.

Case studies of three multinational firms, representing food and beverage, mining and minerals, and pulp and paper industry.

Dual structures may exist within the R&D organisation, one for product innovation and one for process innovation. Consequently, it is suggested that the conventional notion of R&D organisational design, equating R&D more or less with product innovation, does not present a complete picture for many firms.

Opening up the R&D organisation will help further the understanding link between the organisational structuring of product and process innovation, and the efforts of organisations to develop resources and competitive advantages.

The findings have implications for managing the strategy‐organizational fit concerning innovation in process industry.

The conventional view regarding R&D as a single entity – either centralised or decentralised – does not present a complete picture. This paper clarifies the link between strategic innovation determinants and the organisational configuration of R&D.